International Application WO 96/41760 describes an apparatus for conveying products to a packing machine. The apparatus has two parallel, separately driven endless conveyor chains which carry, along less than one half of their circumferential lengths, carrier elements arranged at uniform distances from one another and extending from the respective chains. The carrier elements advance the products on a slotted slide plate from a receiving station through a work section to a discharge station where the products are packed in a tubular bag.
International Application WO 97/42108 describes a similar apparatus in which the two parallel conveyor elements are toothed belts.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,577,453 describes a conveyor apparatus which has but a single conveying element and wherein the products are, at the transfer station, first pushed in groups onto a table and are thereafter deposited by separate pushers into a packing container perpendicularly to the discharging direction.